Hullo Russia, Goodbye England

by Derek Robinson

  “Very droll, sir.”

  “Some might say hilarious. Listen: I’m spending the weekend with Freddy Redman and his wife. If Zoë turns up, tell her she’s invited. She knows Freddy, he was my best man.”

  “Alas, her ladyship will be in Stockholm this weekend.”

  Silk got into his car and made a U-turn and stopped. “Look,” he said, and pointed to a small oil stain on the drive. “See what my bloody car’s done? Order ten tons of fresh gravel. Pay for it from the petty cash. And give yourself half a bottle of very humdrum claret from the cellar.” He accelerated away. Juvenile, he thought. Petty. But he started it.

  3

  The War Game was a great success.

  Senior staff officers at the base entered into the spirit of the conflict wholeheartedly. There was often heated argument. At first the older men proposed to give the Soviets an ultimatum: withdraw from West Berlin within twelve hours... But the scenario that Brigadier Leppard had prepared showed intelligence reports of Soviet armoured divisions heading for the West German border. In twelve hours the war might be lost. All Europe might be overrun. The players took a fast decision: B52 bombers should be ordered to saturate the vast plains of East Germany, Poland, Czechoslovakia and Hungary with nuclear weapons and so wipe out the armies of the Warsaw Pact. “Shoot first,” somebody said. “That way, there’s nobody to argue with later.” The bombers got their orders.

  Leppard then revealed that the seizure of Berlin had been the work of a handful of rebellious Soviet generals while Kruschev was on holiday in the Crimea. According to the Kremlin, the generals were all dead, shot by the KGB. What’s more, the Kremlin had ordered all its armoured divisions back to barracks – but these orders might not have reached some commanders, because already nuclear explosions had badly damaged communications in the East.

  Some players dismissed these claims as Soviet deception plans. However, it was decided to recall the B52s, or at least to have them hold off bombing until... But Leppard announced that some squadrons had already bombed parts of East Germany. So maybe the Kremlin had been right after all.

  Now there was a big argument. Half the players said that if the East had been nuked, massive retaliation was inevitable and the only course was to keep on bombing and paralyse the USSR. The other half said the B52s must be recalled at once. Leppard intervened with a message from Kruschev: You created this terrible crisis, you must end it. You caused a breakdown in communications, and so your American bombers are now out of control. Nato fighters must be sent to destroy the bombers before the crisis becomes a catastrophe...

  After that it got quite exciting.

  Eventually the War Game ran out of time with no definite result, just at the point when the Soviet Pacific Fleet had begun to bombard Los Angeles. The officers went back to their duties. Leppard thanked Skull for taking part.

  “I didn’t do much, I’m afraid. Photo-reconnaissance missions, mainly.”

  “But your information was invaluable.”

  “Was it? I’m not sure your chaps trusted my chaps. Nothing goes as planned, does it? Violence begets violence which begets a nasty surprise all round. Rule one of war.”

  “Uh-huh. Still, it made the guys think.”

  “And a very painful experience it was,” Skull said. “Thinking hurts. Bombing, on the other hand, is fun. Nuclear bombing is the most enormous fun.”

  “How about a drink?” Leppard said.

  4

  Freddy had been right: Sunday lunch at the Redmans’ was good. It left Silk feeling relaxed, a little sleepy.

  Freddy got out the deckchairs. “I’m sorry Zoë couldn’t join us,” he said.

  “Yes. Bad luck. Sends her love, and all that.”

  “Very active, I see.”

  “Non-stop. I’m told she’s good on television. I can’t keep track of her. She racks up more flying time than I do, probably.” He laughed, briefly, just to show it didn’t matter.

  “But you’re still together,” Freddy said. “That’s the main thing.”

  “Thanks to you, pal. You got me posted to 409, didn’t you?”

  “It was an obvious move. No. I’ll be honest. It was an obvious move then, before Zoë... well, you know.”

  “I know. I’ve dropped you in the clag, haven’t I?”

  “It’s nothing you’ve done, old chap. Everyone’s got absolute confidence in you. But...”

  “But I’m an embarrassment. Life at Air Ministry would be easier if I quietly vanished. You don’t want to lose a Vulcan, not at that price, but if I wrapped the Citroën around a tree, a sturdy English oak, that would solve a big problem.” Silk waved away a wasp. “Remember Black Mac? Armaments Officer on 409 in, when was it, ’41? Nasty piece of work. We used to say why doesn’t Black Mac do us all a favour and kill himself.”

  “Yes. It was an accident during bombing-up, wasn’t it?”

  “Hell of a bang. He never felt a thing. Sandbags in the coffin.”

  “Nobody wants you to get killed, Silko, but we’re in a very delicate situation. Suppose we found that another Vulcan pilot was regularly attending CND meetings. That’s dodgy. That’s something to worry about. See what I mean?”

  “Zoë’s brainwashing me. Is that it?”

  “You tell me. Do you discuss nuclear war over the breakfast table?”

  “She does. I stonewall.” The wasp was back. “This little bastard’s in love with me. Shoo! Go and sting Freddy.” He flapped his handkerchief. “She’s very well-informed.”

  “Westminster leaks secrets like a rusty bucket.”

  “I’ll tell you what. If it’s a matter of national survival, I’ll kill Zoë for you.”

  “Not a funny joke, Silko.”

  “Who’s joking? If it’s a matter of national survival, you expect me to kill myself. When the battle begins, we just might hit our target. And then? No turning back. We shan’t see England again. Nothing to see. All the Vulcans will go down, one way or another. And Zoë didn’t tell me that. I worked it out.”

  “Disagree. Too pessimistic.”

  “Relax. It doesn’t matter. I’d still make the trip, just for fun, just to see what a basket of sunshine really looks like when it takes out a city. We all owe God a death. Who said that? I don’t care. It’s true.”

  Freddy rolled up a newspaper, swung hard and missed. “People have been killed by a sting,” he said. “Obviously this little bastard has been briefed to see you in hell.”

  5

  Zoë’s office phoned Freddy’s office and between them they agreed on lunch at the House of Commons.

  They swapped the usual smiles and chit-chat, and ordered food, and she said: “An American pilot spent twenty-four hours as my guest at The Grange and by the following day he’d been shunted back to the States. What’s the game, Freddy?”

  “I’ve no idea.” He snapped a breadstick. “It’s rather flattering, though, isn’t it? I mean, if the US Air Force thinks you’re so dangerous?”

  “You could find out.” Just a suggestion. Not a challenge.

  “They’ll tell me it was a routine posting.”

  “And you know that’s all balls. Are you planning on giving Silko a routine posting soon? Since I’m so dangerous, I mean.”

  “Ah, there’s no escaping you, Zoë. I saw you on television last night. What was all that about Blue Steel’s design problems? Made my flesh creep, you did.”

  She leaned forward, and so did he. “You know I’ve signed the Act, Freddy,” she whispered. “I get my information on a need-to-know basis. If you don’t know already, then I can’t tell you, can I? That’s how the system works.”

  He straightened up. “And where do you get your information?”

  “I make it up, Freddy,” she said. “And if you quote me on that I shall deny it.” Waiters arrived.

  “I seem to be in rather a hopeless position,” Freddy said.

  “That’s what CND has been telling you for months,” she said. With a smile.

  BANG SEATS />
  1

  409 trained hard, and Silk saw nothing of The Grange for a week; until Quinlan’s crew got sent to bomb Rockall.

  This was a lump of granite too small for anything bigger than a seagull to land on, and even a gull might get washed off by a sudden swell. It was about 180 miles west of the Outer Hebrides, which were the nearest landmark. Elsewhere was all Atlantic. Bombing Rockall was a test of navigation. The mock-attack was with a free-fall nuclear bomb, not a Blue Steel, so they would go all the way.

  They flew to Land’s End and then north-west around Ireland and north to the Hebrides. From top to bottom, the chain of islands diminished in size; it looked something like the skeleton of a dinosaur’s tail. From fifty thousand feet, Tucker got excellent radar pictures. The Vulcan’s navigation and bombing system was computerised. It led them to Rockall and opened the bomb bay door and, in theory, left an area of boiling sea and a million blind sea birds.

  The rest of the exercise was routine. They flew around the north of Scotland and down into the North Sea, losing height to thirty-five thousand. Four Hunter jets intercepted them and Quinlan enjoyed twenty minutes of what was known as fighter affiliation: the Hunters failed to destroy the Vulcan because it could out-turn, out-run and out-climb them all. Then home to Kindrick. Quinlan gave Silk the controls. It was an almost perfect landing. The Vulcan floated down the runway, gradually losing the cushion of air under its vast wings, until the main wheels touched and ran, the nose wheel felt for the ground and found it and ran, and the aeroplane was slowing nicely when the nose-wheel tyre burst. Shredded rubber got flung aside like dung from a muckspreader. Briefly the wheel rim ran on concrete, spraying sparks. The cockpit vibrated so hard that the instrument panel was a blur. Then the wheel strut quit, folded, collapsed, and the Vulcan fell on its nose and skidded, spitting out bits of fuselage. It skidded a long way. When it stopped, the pilots were leaning forward into their straps, looking at the runway. Silk had killed the engines. Everything was very quiet.

  “How are the boys in the back room?” Quinlan asked.

  “All okay,” Dando said.

  “Nobody move.”

  “Too late, skip. I’m in the Mess,” Tucker said. “Doing the crossword.”

  “Beware fire,” Quinlan said. He and Silk were watching the fire-indicator lights for the fuselage, the wing tanks, the cabin. There was enough fuel in the tanks to burn a small village.

  “We could jettison the canopy,” Silk said.

  “Possibly. Isn’t the jettison gun linked to the seat-ejection gun?”

  “Is it? I’m not sure.”

  “Neither am I. Are you willing to take the risk? A human cannonball at eighty feet per second, which might not chuck you high enough for the parachute to do its stuff? No, on the whole, I think we’ll wait for the boys in asbestos to get us out. And here they are.” Fire trucks arrived. Their sirens were still sinking to a moan as the firemen forced open the canopy.

  An hour later, Silk and Hallett drove out to look at the cripple. Normally, a Vulcan on the ground had a balanced, predatory look. This one, tail high, seemed to be sniffing the runway. It looked a little foolish.

  The ground crew stood aside to let them examine the damage. The entry/exit door, just ahead of the nose wheel, was crushed and buckled. “Nobody’s coming out of there in a hurry,” Hallett said.

  “And that’s your only exit.”

  “Seen enough? Let’s go.” They walked away from the ground crew. “It’s the only exit for us back-room boys. Pilots have got bang seats. You know all that.”

  “Quinlan didn’t want to blow the canopy,” Silk said. “In case it fired the bang seats too. But suppose a fuel tank had ruptured...”

  “Look: we all know the score. In theory, if the bomber has a fit of the vapours, you two pull the trigger and the canopy departs, hotly pursued by the pilots. That’s when we’re upstairs. On the ground? It’s too low. Eject, and chances are, you’ll bust something. Hips, spine, skull, God knows what.”

  “How high is high enough?”

  “Jesus, Silko. Didn’t you learn anything at OCU?”

  “We played a little bridge.”

  They reached the car. Hallett stretched out on the back seat and looked at the clouds. “Minimum height two hundred feet, minimum speed ninety knots. That’s common sense. If the kite’s on fire, you don’t want to eject and land in the flames.”

  “That’s minimum.” Silk started the car. “Maximum?”

  “I forget. It’s all in the aircrew manual. I think if you eject way up high, the parachute won’t open until you reach ten thou. There’s a speed limit too. For the rear crew it’s 220 knots. We’re not supposed to exit by the nose door if the bomber’s doing more than 220. Too dangerous, it says. How we’re supposed to depart if the kite’s tumbling out of the sky like shit off a shovel, Christ alone knows, it’s not in the manual. Who cares? It’s all bullshit. I don’t know anyone who’s baled out. Wake up, Silko. Try engaging first gear. That’s what makes it go.”

  “Ten thousand,” Silk said thoughtfully.

  “And use the clutch.”

  “We’ll go into Russia at fifty or sixty thou. And quite fast.” Silk switched off the engine.

  “You’re wondering what happens when something nasty climbs up and clobbers us,” Hallett said.

  “Hell, no. I know what happens to you blokes. You pass round the chocolate biscuits and you read a good book until you make a very deep hole in the Ukraine. But Quinlan and me, we’re sitting pretty...”

  “It’s minus sixty up there, you daft bugger. There’s no oxygen. No pressure. You’ll have icicles on your testicles as big as barnacles.”

  “Barnacles aren’t big,” Silk said. “I’ve known some quite small barnacles.”

  2

  Jack Hallett was playing darts when the adjutant told him a policeman wanted to see him. Not a Service policeman: a real cop, from Lincoln. Detective Sergeant Franklyn.

  Tucker looked at Hallett’s face. The left eyelid was flickering uncontrollably. “I’ll come with you,” he said. “Cops are bastards,” he told the adjutant.

  “This one seems decent enough.”

  They met Franklyn in an empty office. He was too tall for his weight, and his hair was too grey for his age, which was about forty; but his eyes were sharp and his nails were clean. He had questions to ask about a local man called Tommy Davis. “Your bookmaker, I believe, Mr Hallett.”

  “Turf accountant. I used to phone him once a year to put a couple of quid on the Grand National, that’s all. I’m not a betting man.”

  “When did you last see him?”

  Hallett screwed up his face. “I might have met him in a pub a year ago... No, sorry, that wasn’t Davis, it was...” He gave up. “I’ll have to think.”

  “If he’s missing, you won’t find him here,” Tucker said brusquely.

  “Tommy Davis is in hospital,” Franklyn told them. “He suffers from an acute allergy to stinging nettles. At the moment he’s in no condition to talk.”

  “A bookie who got stung,” Tucker said. “That makes a change.”

  “His family are very worried,” Franklyn said. “There’s serious bruising. Maybe concussion.”

  “I expect he had a fall,” Hallett said. “Chap I knew had an allergy, couldn’t stand up to save his life.”

  Franklyn asked a few more questions, thanked them politely and left.

  They went out and walked in the fresh air. “He didn’t come all this way just to shake hands,” Hallett said. “I bet he’s looking for clues in the nettles. I bet he’s got a sodding great magnifying glass.”

  “Which nettles?” Tucker said. “There’s nettles everywhere. Lincolnshire’s stiff with them. You can’t throw a bookie without hitting a patch of nettles.”

  “Fancy having a stupid bloody allergy. Silly bastard’s determined to drop me in the shit.” Hallett picked up a pebble and hurled it at a bird. “I hate crows.”

  “Yon crow’s a rook,” Tuck
er growled, “and you’re lucky you missed it or you’d have got a belt on the ear.”

  The adjutant saw them, and called from his office window. “What was all that about?”

  “Nothing, Uncle. Just routine,” Hallett said. “Mistaken identity.”

  “They’re holding a Policeman’s Ball,” Tucker said. “Very painful. Asked if we could help.”

  Old joke. The adjutant didn’t laugh. He went back to his desk. If they thought they weren’t in trouble, he wasn’t about to ask what sort of trouble it wasn’t.

  3

  Silk lugged the cello case to his room and eased it through the door. He was beginning to hate the bloody thing. He should have taken Tess’s advice and switched to a clarinet. But that would only solve half the problem. Weeks were going by, sometimes Zoë asked him to play something, and his excuses sounded weak.

  He sat in an upright chair and put the cello between his legs. He’d learn a scale, that would be a start. Bowing was easy but pressing the strings hurt his fingertips. The noise was painful too. He tensed all the muscles in his legs, pointing his knees outwards. His groin hurt. Small panic: Dear Tess, I practised so hard I ruptured myself... He relaxed entirely. The cello sounded worse. It seemed to wheeze. He tried harder, played louder, and luckily someone knocked on his door.

  It was Hallett and Tucker, come to tell him about Detective-Sergeant Franklyn’s visit. “Davis is in hospital,” Tucker said. “Speechless.”

  “He might recover,” Hallett said. “Might wake up wanting our blood. You never know.”

  “He won’t complain to the police,” Silk said. “Bookies never do, it’s bad for business. Davis has spent half his life dodging cops.”

  “They might find his accounts,” Hallett said.

  “Guys like him keep two sets of books. One for the taxman, one for real. Sometimes the real books are in code.”

  “You know a hell of a lot about it,” Tucker said.

  “I had a rear gunner used to be a bookie’s runner. Got the chop coming back from Bremen. Good type.”

  “Rear gunners,” Hallett said. “I never understood how anyone could volunteer...” He shook his head.